Indianapolis, IN – July 24, 2008. In recognition of the company’s groundbreaking mobile answers service, ChaCha has been selected as the recipient of the prestigious 2008 Frost & Sullivan North American Product Innovation Award. This award is presented each year to the company that has demonstrated excellence in new products and technologies within their industry.
Twenty five companies in the mobile search and advertising arenas were evaluated by Frost & Sullivan, who determined that ChaCha offers a solution that provides the best user experience within the mobile environment. According to Frost & Sullivan’s research group: “ChaCha has clearly identified the missing pieces in mobile search and developed a unique solution to address the key requirements of mobile subscribers. ‘Trust us with your Search’- this seems to be the mantra at ChaCha. The company’s success is attributed to its keen understanding of the mobile subscribers’ requirements, and offering extremely simple – yet highly effective- solutions to meet the hitherto unmet market need.” The full Frost & Sullivan report may be downloaded here.
“After reviewing numerous operators in the mobile search and advertising markets, we believe ChaCha offers the most compelling service for mobile users,” said Vikrant Gandhi, Senior Analyst for Frost & Sullivan. “The high level of interest demonstrated by the number of queries ChaCha answers on a monthly basis clearly indicates that mobile users are finding the service to be of real benefit. We’re delighted to honor ChaCha for their innovation in breaking the code in mobile search through their patent-pending search methodologies and practices.”
“We are honored to receive this coveted award so soon after the launch of our game-changing mobile answers service,” said ChaCha Co-Founder and CEO, Scott A. Jones. “We’re adding a new user every ten seconds and are now answering several million questions per month – all in less than seven months – demonstrating the phenomenal consumer acceptance for our service! Being recognized by a highly-respected independent global research and consulting firm like Frost & Sullivan further validates that our revolutionary human-powered mobile answers service is paving the way in mobile information exchange. We are pleased to see our efforts rewarded with a steady stream of recognition from respected industry leaders such as Frost & Sullivan, but, best of all, though, is the validation from our users. According to a recent survey of our users, 93% would recommend our service to a friend, 83% consider our service to be very valuable and our loyal users query ChaCha an average of over 27 times per month.”
This award is the seventh notable industry accolade ChaCha has earned since the company launched its groundbreaking mobile answers text service in January 2008 – including receiving the distinguished Stevie Award last month in the Best New Service category of the American Business Awards. In May, ChaCha was named one of the Top 15 Innovators in the GSMA Mobile Innovation Marketplace America’s competition. ChaCha was also recently named one of the “Fierce 15” companies of 2008 by FierceWireless, the online news authority for the wireless industry, and won the prestigious AT&T Fast-Pitch Platinum Award in April for “Best Consumer Mobile Application” at the CTIA Wireless Association Convention in Las Vegas. In March, ChaCha took top prize in the “My Search is Better than Your Search” competition at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Manhattan, and was also ranked as the “No. 1 Alternative Search Engine” in February by Charles Knight of the blogging network, ReadWriteWeb.
About ChaCha
ChaCha, a free mobile answers service, allows users to call 1-800-2ChaCha™ or text questions to ChaCha (242242™) on mobile phones and receive answers within minutes. ChaCha expert guides — trained and skilled individuals — use ChaCha’s powerful internal patent-pending search tools to respond to any query. For more information about ChaCha’s newest features, go to www.chacha.com. Created by serial entrepreneur Scott A. Jones (www.scottajones.com) and Brad Bostic (http://blog.bradbostic.com), ChaCha is funded by Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment firm of Jeff Bezos; Morton Meyerson, former President and Vice Chairman of EDS as well as Chairman and CEO of Perot Systems; Rod Canion, founding CEO of Compaq Computer; and Jack Gill, well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist.
About Frost & Sullivan Best Practices
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry. www.awards.frost.com.
About Frost & Sullivan
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